Part of the Integrated .NET Series, this book provides a practical and comprehensive treatment on implementing both cryptography and security features on the .NET platform - using the C# and VB .NET programming languages. It provides focused and detailed code examples that demonstrate the most important concepts, with commentary on how the code examples work. The book also provides a substantial mathematical and theoretical background on the underlying cryptographic concepts. After reading this book and experimenting with the provided example programs, the reader should have a good understanding of the major cryptographic algorithms and standard cryptographic programming techniques. Readers should also gain a solid understanding of how .NET security works and how to implement user-based and code access security in their own .NET programs.

Product Description

From the Inside Flap

Over the last several years, security and cryptography technologies have been continually increasing in importance to Windows users and software developers. Additionally, in some respects the security and cryptographic capabilities of 32-bit Windows has reached parity with larger mini and mainframe computing platforms, where security has always been a major priority. Now, with the advent of .NET, these security capabilities have become much easier to implement than ever before. Of course, a significant investment in effort is still required in understanding the concepts and acquiring the skills necessary to leverage the many security features provided by .NET. Indeed, that is exactly what this book is all about. Although much of the same functionality was provided in the form of an arcane Win32 C Windows library, the advent of .NET has made security and cryptography programming much simpler and much more powerful than ever before. The .NET Security Framework provides a powerful set of security and cryptographic classes that are relatively easy to use, and this framework is explored throughout this book.

This book is intended to provide a practical and comprehensive coverage on implementing both cryptography and security functionality on the .NET platform. It is an effective tutorial, providing a large number of clear and focused code examples.

Organization

The book is organized into 10 chapters and five appendixes. Chapter 1 introduces cryptography and security on the .NET platform and provides a nontechnical overview of the topics that are described in greater detail in subsequent chapters. This first chapter also provides the reasoning behind the layout of the book and how the two main topics of cryptography and security interrelate. The purpose of this chapter is not to provide significant depth or code examples, but rather to convey conceptual understanding and to provide an overview of cryptography and security technologies on the .NET platform. Chapter 2 provides a solid theoretical background to promote a deeper insight into all subsequent chapters. The point is made that all security is based on cryptography, and, to understand cryptography in a meaningful way, it is necessary to first understand several basic theoretical cryptographic concepts. Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6 provide detailed hands-on .NET programming examples, using symmetric algorithms, asymmetric algorithms, digital signatures, and XML cryptography, respectively. Chapters 7 and 8 cover .NET programming with user-based security and code access security, respectively. Chapter 9 introduces ASP.NET security programming, and chapter 10 introduces .NET Web Services security programming.

Each aspect of .NET cryptography and security is dealt with in the proper context and sequence, where they are most relevant and most easily understood. Appendixes describe a few additional topics, such as security attacks and additional cryptography-related mathematical topics.

This book is intended to be a practical tutorial with many succinct programming examples that focus on specific and individual concepts. Also, the focus of the book is on practical .NET security programming rather than on administrative security tasks. This book provides sufficient background information to enable the reader to clearly see why security and cryptography are critically important to modern software development. The goal is to equip the reader to begin building significant applications using the .NET Security Framework. This book is part of The Integrated .NET Series from Object Innovations and Prentice Hall PTR.

Sample Programs

The best way to learn about a significant class library such as the .NET Security Framework is to read and write many programs. This book provides many small programs that illustrate each of the pertinent features of .NET in isolation, which makes them easier to understand. The programs are clearly labeled in the text, and they can all be found in the software distribution that accompanies this book. These sample programs are provided in a self-extracting file on the book's Web site. When expanded, a directory structure is created whose default root is c:\OI\NetSecurity. The sample programs, which begin with the second chapter, are in directories Chap02, Chap03, and so on. All the samples for a given chapter are in individual folders within the chapter directories. The names of the folders are clearly identified in the text.

This book is part of The Integrated .NET Series. The sample programs for other books in the series are located in their own directories underneath \OI, so all the .NET examples from all books in the series will be located in a common area as you install them. These programs are furnished solely for instructional purposes and should not be embedded in any software product. The software (including instructions for use) is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind.

From the Back Cover

Learn how to make your .NET applications secure!

Security and cryptography, while always an essential part of the computing industry, have seen their importance increase greatly in the last several years. Microsoft's .NET Framework provides developers with a powerful new set of tools to make their applications secure. NET Security and Cryptography is a practical and comprehensive guide to implementing both the security and the cryptography features found in the .NET platform. The authors provide numerous clear and focused examples in both C# and Visual Basic .NET, as well as detailed commentary on how the code works. They cover topics in a logical sequence and context, where they are most relevant and most easily understood. All of the sample code is available online at <www.objectinnovations.com/library/books/books_dotnet.html>.

This book will allow developers to:

Develop a solid basis in the theory of cryptography, so they can understand how the security tools in the .NET Framework function

Learn to use symmetric algorithms, asymmetric algorithms, and digital signatures

Master both traditional encryption programming as well as the new techniques of XML encryption and XML signatures

Most helpful customer reviews

The great allure of this book is for developers that need to guard against viruses/worms. On the desktop, Microsoft's operating systems dominate, which has led to virus writers directing their all too apparent ingenuity against these platforms. There is nothing that makes Microsoft inherently more insecure than linux or the unixes. But its market share implies that if you are developing on it, you need to expect to encounter viruses. As the book elaborates in Chapter 8, this is not just in applications that make obvious "risky" steps like opening a file and executing its contents, or opening a network connection and asking for and downloading and running the reply. Basically, ANY application should be written with security in mind.The biggest worry about viruses/worms, especially the Sobig which is still circulating as I write this, is that they are getting more potent, more devastating. To combat them, programming tools and environments need to improve. One major advance is the .NET described in the book. Possibly its nicest attribute is that it enables C# programs. This compile time and runtime environment automatically checks for typesafe operations. Analogous to java and its jvm.Microsoft is doing its bit to improve, by emphasising safer coding in its operating systems and applications. Though the sheer mass of its pre-.NET/C# code is undoubtedly making this transition a prolonged ongoing process. But you, as a third party developer, also need to pull your own weight, by coding to the ideals described in the book.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)

Amazon.com:
2 reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

Excellent overview of .NET securityNov. 27 2004

By
D. Tsitrelis
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

Too many books on the topic simply overload the reader with details. This book follows a simple progression in each chapter that makes it easy to read and understand. Ditto with the examples which are written with the same clarity.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful

Book Review : .NET Security and CryptographyOct. 13 2004

By
Sudhakar_MVP
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

Well I can't stop writing a review on this book even thought I read only few chapters. The book that I am currently reading is incidently the World's first book on ".NET Secuirty". I am very glad to know that this book may go as a de-facto for students who want to learn .net from security perspective which can lead to a very good programming world of .NET in future as well. As a Microsoft MVP, I had got a chance to observe the community and students around in close, and I got to found one interesting thing amongst students. That is nothing but an intution to break or hack the software. So I learnt that only students can think about security right from the first line of thier code. Since the student community is slowly moving towards .NET development, there is a very strong need of these kind of books to make them write secure code right from the beginning.

The recent initiatives on Trustworthy computing from Microsoft are also very welcome in this perspective. This could help most of the developer to think twice before they write some code which interacts with public systems like internet.

The current book that I am reading (well..to improve my skills in writing secure code ;-)) is "The .NET Security and Cryptography" by Mr. Gnana Arun Ganesh and Peter Thorsteinson. I found this book as very different to read because, right from the first chapter, it made me think like a hacker which is very unlikely of my mindset as a developer. But as this book's preface denotes an old proverb "Think like a fish, if you wanna catch it", the authors of this book tried thier level best to implement the same wherever it is possible. Thanks Guys.

The coolest part of this book is it's practical approach towards the problems in security. You will find detailed explanations and code examples or graphical representations whereever you need of them. This approach gives a relief to the code-N-test developers. Most of the topics are covered with code and graphical representation just as it was taught by some professor in any university.

On .NET lines, this book covers ASP.NET security and web services security, the topics every developer looks for..along with Cryptography lessons from .NET perspective. There is a whole chapter dedicated for "Code Access Security" which made me feel the "Value for Money" and satisfaction as a developer.

The authors of this book has taken one more care at the end of the book. This books ends with a sneak overview of Web services to ensure thier focus towards next generation development platforms and the need of mentioning that. My overall rating is : Gold..Just go and grab one.